Experiencing an unstable situation and experiencing ups and downs in the structure of its economy, any average state is faced with such a negative factor in the impact of the financial crisis as unemployment. Unscheduled staff reductions, the closure of functional facilities and the corresponding dismissal of personnel all this leads to the fact that the labor exchange is growing demand, but supply is not growing. The activation of such a global mechanism as the Internet space, and the development of social networks, had a striking effect on the level of their demand.
Today, every second representative of the young generation has something to do with the implementation of activities in social networks and other Internet platforms. Representatives of a huge number of different service sectors have been trumpeting the business that is being built from scratch on the Internet.
So, directly or indirectly, the two most serious reasons - unemployment and the popularization of Internet businesses - have contributed to the fact that today, virtually every third citizen thinks about trying his hand at freelance. One of the simplest and most demanded ways of such free earnings today is copywriting. This is one of the most popular types of earnings on the Internet.
How to start working as a copywriter and what do beginner freelancers need to know before embarking on this type of work?
Advice number 1: take seriously the selection of a suitable exchange
The very first thing that you need to pay attention to the future executor of text tasks is the choice of a suitable exchange. For a novice copywriter who has already clearly decided what he wants and can test his strength in a similar business, the correct selection of the main field of activity should be the number one task. Why is it so important to pay attention to this aspect? Everything is simple: your interest and incentive to the work directly depends on how much you are satisfied with the functionality and working conditions on a specific copywriting platform.
You must admit that when you have all the cards in your hands, the superior leadership does not hang over you and you can make decisions on your own, many easily give up under the influence of their own laziness and lose any interest in writing articles. Therefore, the slightest inconsistency or puncture at the initial stage can fail the whole idea of becoming a freelancer in an instant.
To avoid disappointment in your endeavors, do an analysis of the existing platform market with the required content. Examine the structure of the site, view a list of standard conditions for completing tasks, identify positive and negative points.
Particular attention should be paid to the rating upgrade system and the conditions for withdrawing funds through possible payment systems. It only seems that these issues are secondary. Not at all. When you begin to specifically engage in this matter, in the process of cooperation with a particular platform, all the pitfalls will certainly come up, but only at the most inopportune time for you.
The following copywriting exchanges are considered most relevant:
- Etext is one of the most popular platforms for buying and selling articles, and completing assignments based on copywriting and rewriting. The service has a convenient interface, a huge number of various tasks, and ease of monitoring. Among the negative aspects, many ordinary people note a low cost of labor, a long withdrawal of funds (after submitting an application - 6 working days) and the need to pass a literacy test during registration. In general, the ETEX copywriting exchange is the most suitable platform for beginners.
- Advego is an even more popular service for potential customers and contractors, the construction of orders in which looks like a list of tenders. This is a kind of competition: you submit your application in the comments to the order, and the customer is already considering your proposals and choosing the most suitable candidate from among the respondents. As a rule, this is the artist with the highest rating. Almost every freelancer is registered on this exchange, since today it is considered the most relevant - over two million users are registered here.
- “TextSail” is an exchange that is in high demand, but is more designed for the purchase and sale of unique material. Although the tasks to be carried out here, of course, also exist. The downside is that every month you need to pay $ 10 for using the service. However, this does not frighten many, since those who are aimed at a productive result will work out this amount without much effort in the first couple of days.
- “Fl.ru” is another exchange with active advertising and an extensive range of tasks of various kinds. Here you can not only write articles, but also perform work on creating websites, promoting, forming a semantic core, and many others. Users like this service because it is really possible to earn decent money here. But the fee for working with the platform is also impressive - about 1000 rubles per month. Not everyone is happy with this state of things, because there are many other services where you can start working completely free.
- Tekst.ru is a stock exchange that does not include such a number of users that, for example, Advego can boast of. But the convenience of the interface and ease of operation pleases potential customers and contractors.
I would like to give one more important advice to beginner copywriters: do not immediately register on all possible freelance platforms. It is clear that it is difficult to make a choice without trying a specific exchange in business. But the point is to move in one direction and develop a rating on at least one of the possible exchange platforms, and not waste your strength and work on several different ones, while not reaching the goal really on any of them. This is the wrong way: as if you will be everywhere, and at the same time nowhere. Therefore, it is more correct and more beneficial for you to give preference to a specific copywriting exchange.
Tip # 2: Be Realistic and Get High Payments Gradually
Many beginners sometimes overestimate their capabilities too much. For example, you once at a school had a solid excellent mark in the Russian language and literature, or at the university you wrote various scientific publications on 4-5 kilosigns to get a credit automatically. And so you sat down at the workplace at home in front of the computer and decided that the level of your capabilities is much higher than all these petty offers that the exchange is filled with. You start looking for tasks more expensive. However, you should understand one important thing: being a beginner and wondering how to become a copywriter and how to start working without experience, you cannot look for extremely expensive tasks and neglect low-paying options. Understand that with a rating of zero you will not receive many orders. More precisely, you will not receive a single highly paid order at all, having behind you zero positive reviews and zero rating points.
Therefore, immediately set a goal for yourself: choose some specific number bar that you need to achieve for a certain period of time. Do not be afraid to take inexpensive orders. This is also a kind of experience. When working with customers, choose the offers available for your skill level. Otherwise, you risk taking the task beyond your strength and flying into a negative rating, which will be difficult to get out of subsequently. First, you work for the rating, and only after the rating works for you.
Tip # 3: don't go to extremes
For all that, you need to adhere to an objective assessment of your work, it is also not worth doing work for free. For example, on different exchanges there are many customers who are looking for artists in large quantities and offer jobs in large quantities. But for this they are ready to pay mere pennies, from five to seven rubles per thousand characters. For you to understand, such remuneration is scanty. Especially in cases where the topic is really difficult and the requirements, respectively, are also not the most loyal. By working for the money, you are likely to quickly lose the incentive. And you will not be able to work purely on enthusiasm all the time, and what's the point? Take the prerogative of writing articles worth 10 rubles / 1000 characters. To start. In addition to the most avaricious customers who work for quantity, there are also those for whom quality is still important.
Tip # 4: Make Your Profile Attractive to Potential Customers
How to act after registering on a specific exchange for a novice copywriter? Where to begin? And how to become a subsequently sought-after specialist?
It is important to understand that the copywriting exchange is equated to the demand exchange for the supply of specific services. That is, you, as the seller of your product (in this case, your product is your pen and the ability to write interesting, informative texts), appear before potential buyers of your product. Here you can draw a banal analogy: which vegetable shop merchant are you most likely to approach — the one who is clean and tidy, who is pleasant to deal with (after all, he talks everything from and to about his potatoes), or to the gloomy, laconic competitor on the contrary? People are attracted to transparency, they are interested in learning at least a little background about the product that they intend to purchase. So it is on the exchange: a lot depends on the resume of a novice copywriter. Where to begin? And how to become potentially attractive to serious customers?
It is necessary to pay special attention to the most significant points:
- Put your successful photo on the profile screen saver, do not leave this window blank. Young, energetic and ambitious people with good looks are able to make a good impression on a subconscious level. Do not deprive yourself of the opportunity to please your customer in absentia.
- Provide information about your education. Having information about your achievements related to the humanities, linguistics or literature will definitely play into your hands. If you had experience working as a journalist or editor, you should definitely insert this information in the appropriate column of your resume.
- Do not be lazy and sketch a couple of works to fill your own portfolio. As a novice copywriter, finding a mentor will not be easy without a portfolio. Many customers do not follow their intuition and trust only the actual material. In this case, one or two articles that should be written by you as your self-promotion can serve as such material. Show your abilities in these works, interest the potential employer with the stylistic features of your writing. In no case do not forget about grammar and punctuation. For the vast majority of customers, these two factors are a priority.
These are the straightforward features of compiling a resume that will attract a greater interest in your personality to a novice copywriter. And where to start direct work?
Tip number 5: choose the right thematic category for yourself
Choosing a topic for writing articles is an equally important aspect of organizing your work on the stock exchange. In the unwritten step-by-step instructions of a copywriter from scratch, a separate thesis highlights the importance and significance of selecting the right category for your future work. Judge for yourself: it’s logical, after all, that the topic that you are well versed in will be written by you much faster and more informative than the category where you absolutely do not understand anything.
It is clear that there is a deep rewriting for this. You can study a lot of similar articles with a bias in a specific topic and reflect everything in rephrased form in a new article. But this will take quite a lot of time, at least twice as much as if you would take a topic that is close to yours. When a person knows what he is writing about, he does not stop looking for new sources, he does not study new terminology in order to create high-quality content. Accordingly, much less time and effort is spent. And no books for copywriters will be required, because the main flow of information comes from the available knowledge, experience, and skills to work with a particular object, which is the main thesis of the article. Work with what you get and enjoy working with.
Tip # 6: carefully study the TOR before doing
Very many make the same mistake as novice copywriters. Where to start work on a specific order? Before you take it to work, you need to carefully go through the text of the assignment. Looking at an attractive price, newcomers are often in a hurry to submit an application for the execution of the order, but they do not at all take into account the fact that the requirements may contain points that are excessive to fulfill. The customer may request compliance of the article with overestimated indicators on test resources, such as Antiplagiarism, Glavred, Tekst.ru, where there are significant restrictions, ranging from text nausea to errors in stylistic sayings. Therefore, a detailed study of the parameters required by the customer to complete the task is considered a rather important point. If you see that the task is set by the employer is simple, agree. If in doubt, it’s best not to risk getting a negative rating and negative feedback.
Tip # 7: keep track of deadlines
In addition to the various nuances in the requirements stipulated by the text of the assignment, the newcomer faces another no less important issue - the timing of a specific task. Time is one of the most important components of the copywriter profession. Where to start the selection of tasks? With a study of its time frame. If you are a mum on maternity leave, who cannot plan her working day with impeccable accuracy, it is better to refrain from urgent orders. If you don’t deliver the work on time, it threatens you with withdrawal from the order, blacklisting by the customer, leaving a negative review and depriving the already hard-earned first rating score. If you see that the work needs to be handed over already tomorrow, and your capabilities do not allow you to catch the deadline, it’s better not to take such an order, do not waste time.
Tip # 8: Be sure to check the full text before submitting
At first, working as a copywriter at home without experience may not be easy. Those who take this step consciously understand how important it is not to hit the face in front of the customer (whatever it may be), because the reputation, rating and end result depend on this - payment by the employer for services. Therefore, it is very important to do a thorough check at the end of the order. During the writing of the work, you can make a lot of all kinds of mistakes, from punctuation to grammar and stylistic. Reading the text at the end of the work will help you avoid flaws, incoherent sentences, inconsistencies in the text. In order to remain a competent contractor in the eyes of the customer and be able to receive orders from him in the future, do not be lazy, check your texts from beginning to end.
Tip # 9: Keep your text structured
Even if the terms of reference do not stipulate a clear structure of the subtitles in the article, make it a rule to write an introduction (preferably up to 500 characters), highlight the main part and describe in a couple of sentences the final conclusions that logically follow from the main part of your article. A text that is more correct and understandable from the point of view of perception should be accompanied by bulleted and numbered lists - do not neglect this rule.
Tip # 10: Be Ambitious
Do not be shy, offer your services to potential customers. If it seems to you that you would be able to do this work, but the high cost and the presence of special requirements are alarming you, analyze your capabilities in relation to performing such a task again. If you counted more pros than cons, go for it. Who does not take risks, he does not drink champagne. Moreover, everything comes with experience, and the one who does nothing is not mistaken.